The Flyers stole one. They lost the expected-goals battle 2.05–3.93 and won anyway.
The Flyers won 5–1 despite losing the expected-goal battle 3.93–2.05—a 66–34 split that should have meant a much closer game. D. Vladar made the difference.
The Devils controlled the shot attempts (55%, 24–20) and dominated the quality of chances (9 high-danger opportunities to 2), but converted nothing. Philadelphia was ruthless in the opposite direction: four goals came on the rush, off limited volume. The Devils generated 5 rebound opportunities and couldn't finish any of them.
D. Vladar stopped 23 of 24 shots, a 0.958 save percentage that included a perfect 100% mark on nine high-danger attempts. He saved 2.93 goals above expected—the margin between a blowout and a contest. J. Markstrom faced a smaller workload (15 saves on 19 shots) but couldn't execute: a 0.789 save percentage meant allowing 1.95 goals more than his underlying numbers suggested.
The variance was brutal for New Jersey. The club underperformed its xG by 2.9 goals, a combination of poor execution and a netminder who couldn't bail them out. Philadelphia overperformed its expected goals by 3.0 in the opposite direction, though their finishing on the rush justified some of that outperformance. Vladar simply did his job better than any metric suggested.
This wasn't the Devils playing bad hockey—they created the looks and held territorial advantage. But 0 for 9 on high-danger chances is a death sentence, even with an elite goaltender in net (he wasn't). Philadelphia won because Vladar was a wall and the Flyers converted their few chances into points, while New Jersey wasted a superior workload.
